“Not until you tell everyone why you listed the tractor as an ordinary Model B.”
Then she walked toward the engine.
She removed the masking tape.
She wiped the identification plate.
And she read the number aloud.
The elderly collector standing near the back pushed through the crowd.
He crouched beside the machine.
Examined the plate.
Then slowly stood.
“If this serial number is genuine,” he said, his voice trembling, “that little girl may have just purchased something extraordinary.”
The auctioneer's face went white.
And suddenly, the room that had laughed at May Cutler began looking at her as though she were the only person who had understood what they were really bidding on.
The elderly collector asked everyone to step back from the tractor.
His hands were trembling as he examined the unusual steering housing and the reinforced bracket beneath the seat. He had spent more than forty years studying antique agricultural equipment, and he knew that many tractors had been modified by farmers over the decades. A homemade attachment or unusual repair did not automatically make a machine valuable, but the combination of factory-style test markings and nonstandard components was enough to demand a careful examination.
He looked toward May.
“Would you mind showing me the page in your notebook?”
She hesitated.
Then she looked at her aunt.
The older woman nodded.
“Go ahead. Keep hold of it.”
May opened the notebook to the drawing of the tractor.
The collector leaned closer.
His eyes widened.
“That handwriting.”
May looked surprised.
“What about it?”
He pointed toward the diagram.
“I've seen something like this before.”
The auctioneer interrupted.
“That's enough. The sale is canceled.”
The barn became silent.
May looked toward him.
“What?”
The auctioneer stepped closer.
“I said the sale is canceled.”
Her aunt moved beside her.
“You already sold it.”
The auctioneer shook his head.
“A minor can't enter a binding contract.”
May's aunt held up the registration card.
“I'm the registered bidder. The purchase is under my name on her behalf.”
The auctioneer's face reddened.
“That doesn't change the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?”
He gestured toward the tractor.
“There's a question about its identity.”
The elderly collector looked up.
“That question existed before the sale.”